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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29710593">I've Got This Fever</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelesslords/pseuds/timelesslords'>timelesslords</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Heroes of Olympus One Shots [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Percy Jackson and the Olympians &amp; Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>College, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fever, Fluff, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Percy Jackson is Good Boyfriend, Post-Canon, Sickfic, The flu, not trials of apollo compliant bc I want them to live together in college damn it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:42:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,751</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29710593</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelesslords/pseuds/timelesslords</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Her mouth was drier than the Sahara desert. Her muscles ached, and even the soft sheets and pajamas she was wearing felt like knives on her skin. Despite being under a mountain of covers, she was shivering, bitterly cold.</p><p>All this evidence pointed to one horrifying conclusion. Annabeth was sick. </p><p>Annabeth <i>never</i> got sick.</p><p>***<br/>Or, Annabeth catches the flu, and domestic fluff ensues.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Heroes of Olympus One Shots [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2113620</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>143</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I've Got This Fever</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Annabeth woke up in pain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This wasn’t exactly an unusual occurrence. Being a demigod, Annabeth was no stranger to pain. She’d had broken bones, burns, cuts, stab wounds…. you name an injury, Annabeth Chase had probably experienced it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But this was a different kind of hurt, a hurt Annabeth hadn’t felt in a long time. Her head was pounding. Her mouth was drier than the Sahara desert. Her muscles ached, and even the soft sheets and pajamas she was wearing felt like knives on her skin. Despite being under a mountain of covers, she was shivering, bitterly cold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All this evidence pointed to one horrifying conclusion. Annabeth was sick. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annabeth </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> got sick.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She groaned, sitting up. That turned out to be a bad idea as a wave of nausea rolled over her, and she lowered herself back onto her pillows, falling the last half of the distance. She felt Percy shift beside her, woken from her movement. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” he said, the smile fading quickly from his face as he saw her own expression, which was probably nothing short of miserable. “What’s wrong?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I feel like crap.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She surprised even herself with how horrible her voice sounded, raspy and dry. Percy frowned, reaching out and touching her forehead. He normally ran hot, but now his fingers felt cool against her skin, almost painfully so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re burning up.” he said, frown deepening. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m freezing.” Annabeth croaked. As if to prove her point, she shivered involuntarily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s the fever talking.” Percy said grimly, “Hold on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He climbed out of bed. His warmth left with him, and Annabeth was left just that much colder, trembling under the covers. Percy couldn’t have been gone more than two minutes, but it felt like an eternity. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he returned he was holding a thermometer and a glass of water. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Temperature first. The water might mess with the reading.” He said, apologetic. She wanted to hate him for that because she was so thirsty she thought she might die, but she knew he was right. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annabeth sat up slowly. Thankfully this time she just felt a little dizzy and not nauseous. The thermometer was cold and uncomfortable under her tongue, but Percy kept a steadying hand on her back, rubbing small circles into her shoulder with his thumb. With her oversensitive skin it almost hurt, but she leaned into the contact anyways. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the thermometer beeped, Percy traded it for the glass of water. Annabeth nearly downed the entire glass in one gulp. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A hundred and one.” he announced, flipping the display so she could see. The number was lit up in red, signaling that she did, in fact, have a fever. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t be sick. I have class.” Annabeth said. Her voice was a little improved by the water, but she still sounded kind of terrible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just email your professors and tell them you can’t make it.” Percy said, as if this were the easiest thing in the world. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For him it probably was. He did his best with school, but he also wasn’t opposed to ditching class every once in a while and blaming it on a fabricated stomach bug, something Annabeth found absolutely abhorrent. She hadn’t missed one class in her entire college career, and she wasn’t about to start now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine. I’ll just take some tylenol and I’ll be good to go.” Annabeth said. Percy gave her an exasperated look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Beth. You probably have the flu, you can’t go to class like this.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s just a little fever.” Annabeth protested. Really, she was already starting to feel better. It was just waking up that had been the hard part, and some ibuprofen would knock her headache and high temperature right out. Percy didn’t look so convinced, but what did he know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you say so.” Percy said, crossing his arms over his chest. Annabeth looked at him suspiciously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not going to fight me on this?” she asked. Percy just gave a shrug, though his expression was a stubborn one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope. You can go right ahead.” Percy said, gesturing his hand off the bed. There was no way he should be giving up this easily, but if he wasn’t going to argue with her, Annabeth wasn’t going to be the one to start it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She swung her legs carefully over the edge of the bed, glancing again at Percy. He gave her a </span>
  <em>
    <span>go ahead</span>
  </em>
  <span> look, so she did. The second she tried to put weight on her feet, her vision blacked out and her knees buckled. She would have fallen flat on her face if Percy hadn’t been waiting there to catch her. Her headache immediately doubled in intensity, and Annabeth groaned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Still wanna go to class?” Percy asked. He at least had the decency to sound sorry for her, even though making fun of her would have been just as deserved. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was mean.” Annabeth complained. Percy lowered her back into bed, gently pushing her shoulder so she would lie down again. Annabeth didn’t need so much convincing this time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was the fastest way.” Percy said apologetically, brushing some hair out of her eyes “You would have fought me on it all day, otherwise.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annabeth sighed, but didn’t deny it. She probably would have been unbearable. She probably still was going to be unbearable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How am I sick? I never get sick. I’ve never had the flu in my life.” Annabeth said. She glanced upwards at Percy, who was looking very much like he was trying to not say something. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” she asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing.” he said quickly, but Annabeth knew his expressions better than her own, and she knew when he was holding back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re thinking something.” Annabeth said accusingly. A smile cracked through his holding-back face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Should I not be?” he asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know what I mean.” Annabeth grumbled. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay. I mean, I’m sure your immune system is very high-quality. I mean, it's yours, how could it not be?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop trying to butter me up.” Annabeth said, but she couldn't keep a smile all the way off her face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who said I was buttering you up? I was complimenting your robust immune response” Percy said innocently, still grinning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now you’re trying to distract me, but it won’t work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was a complete lie. If he tried a little harder, it probably would work, and he knew it as well as she did. He caved anyways, which meant he probably did actually want to tell her what he was thinking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, fine.” Percy said, “I was just going to say, you spent most of your winters at camp, which is totally isolated from the outside world, which means you haven’t really had a real flu season since you were like seven.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I went to boarding school.” Annabeth reminded him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, and you spent winter breaks at camp, or at your dad’s.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He neglected to mention that she had spent one such break kidnapped by Luke and forced to carry the weight of the sky, which would have proved his point further, but Percy was not so ruthless during little discussions like these that he needed to bring up every last piece of evidence. Annabeth envied that restraint sometimes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you trying to tell me that my immune system probably actually sucks because it hasn’t been exposed to anything real since I was eight?” Annabeth asked. Percy bit his bottom lip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You said it, not me.” he said, with an apologetic shrug. Annabeth groaned again, rolling onto her stomach and shoving her face in her pillow. The sudden movement did nothing to relieve her headache; in fact it started pounding away with renewed vigor. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I got my flu shot and everything.” Annabeth complained, “I wash my hands all the time.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you hadn’t gotten your shot you’d be feeling twice as bad right now, believe me.” Percy said. Between his ADHD-induced forgetfulness and his living in the city during flu season, Annabeth was inclined to trust him on that one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do I do?” she asked, turning her face halfway off the pillow so she could look at him again. The sympathetic look he was giving her did not make her optimistic for his answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Drink a lot of water and wait for it to pass.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s it?” Annabeth asked in disbelief. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And keep an eye on your temperature.” Percy amended, “If it goes over a hundred and three I’m taking you to the ER.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Modern medicine is a sham.” Annabeth said. That elicited a laugh from him, at least.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go back to sleep. You can send your emails later.” he said, brushing a few stray curls behind her ear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know if I can.” Annabeth said, and it wasn’t even a lie or her being stubborn. She was still freezing somehow, shivering even though she was under blankets again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In response, Percy crawled back under the covers, wrapping his arms around her. She snuggled into his chest, stealing his warmth, even though she knew she shouldn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have class.” Annabeth protested. She felt his laugh, a sturdy vibration in his chest, more than she heard it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not anymore. I’m probably just as contagious as you at this point.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Annabeth tried again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to get you sick.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe.” Percy said, not sounding particularly bothered by it either way. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But…” Annabeth trailed off. She didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> him to leave, but it also didn’t feel fair to keep him here, knowing she was probably condemning him to the same misery she was feeling now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry about me.” Percy said, reading her thoughts, “I used to ride the subway everyday, I think I’ve had every strain of the flu known to man. And if you think I’m just going to leave you here shivering, you’re crazy.”  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess I’ll allow it.” Annabeth mumbled, scooting a little closer to him. The shakes were finally starting to dissipate, driven off by Percy’s warmth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, you’ll allow it?” he asked. She could hear the smile in his voice, even if she couldn’t see it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For now.” Annabeth said, though she had absolutely no intention of changing her mind, and he knew it better than she did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go back to sleep, Wise Girl.” Percy said, kissing the top of her head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine.” she said, too tired to think of a good retort. “Seaweed Brain.” she added sleepily, for good measure. She felt him laugh again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It took a while, but eventually she managed to drift off to sleep again, curled up in his arms. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
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